Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Reddit Bans "Climate Deniers"

"Where there is no consensus we ask users to support their comments with links to studies and publications. However, the consensus is so overwhelming in the case of climate change that it would effectively be like allowing people to come into a submission on vaccinations and throw around the claim that vaccines cause autism. Our policy limits both deniers and skeptics to the extent that /r/science is for the discussion of current, peer-reviewed research and climate skepticism doesn’t have much to show in that regard."

“As moderators responsible for what millions of people see, we felt that to allow a handful of commenters to so purposefully mislead our audience was simply immoral,”

Think Progress

58 comments:

The Dude said...

Liberal fascism at its best.

rhhardin said...

Gee, I could post my Navier Stokes argument and my matrix eigenvalues argument if I had a reddit account.

Two reasons why you know a priori that the warmy scientists don't know what they're claiming to know.

The Dude said...

Facts just confuse them and math is hard.

chickelit said...

I'm a bit of a reddit-denier, oblivious to their influence on news and opinion. This move stamps them as agenda-driven. Such outlets have thrived, but only under fascism.

chickelit said...

In their defense, have they distinguished between denial and skepticism?

sakredkow said...

Well I'm not defending Reddit here, a site I've never been to, but I'm pretty sure you guys are on the wrong side of the climate debate.

The Dude said...

I know - St. Al Gore the Brilliant has never spoken an untruth.

In other news, it's fucking freezing outside and the sun is quieter than it has been in a very long time.

I know - let's have a conference in Tahiti and jet off to complain about the carbon footprint of peons.

chickelit said...

phx said...
Well I'm not defending Reddit here, a site I've never been to, but I'm pretty sure you guys are on the wrong side of the climate debate.

The issue could just as well be any other contentious issue, phx: gay marriage, guns, abortion. One side has unilaterally decided to shut down free discussion.

bagoh20 said...

phx, That's certainly true if you consider the wrong side of the debate is the side wanting to have one.

chickelit said...

Reddit's move is analogous to Althouse shutting down her comment section periodically. People will find a path around the obstruction.

The Dude said...
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sakredkow said...

Yeah, I didn't say I was defending Reddit, a site that, myself, I can apparently live without.

bagoh20 said...

Please limit your discussion to how wonderful life will be after the Great Leap Forward. Direct quotes from your Little Red Book, or love letters to Mao will also be permitted as we work together to solve the scientific problems of our time.

YoungHegelian said...

I suspect that this had something to do with the AGW folks starting to lose. And probably badly, too.

I've seen these discussions at other sites, and they aren't pretty.

The Dude said...
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bagoh20 said...
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bagoh20 said...

The Sun was banned from Reddit discussions earlier this week when it was discovered that it was not cooperating. Venus was invited to join in and testify about her experiences, and was the guest of honor at the champagne brunch.

sakredkow said...

I'm told, correct me if I'm told wrong, that Reddit isn't even especially liberal. It leans more towards libertarian.

bagoh20 said...

I think this action puts them squarely in the totalitarian inclined left.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

..have they distinguished between denial and skepticism?

It sounds like its up to the moderator's judgment.

sakredkow said...

Oh I think the Republic will survive Reddit's editorial policies.

It is anybody's guess whether we'll survive the world's environmental policies, however.

chickelit said...

@Lem: The word "sensorship" only gets 9 thumbs up at Urban Dictionary.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

fixed, thanks.

Known Unknown said...

Can I still use "Climate Denier" as my username at Reddit though?

bagoh20 said...

"It is anybody's guess whether we'll survive the world's environmental policies, however. "

That's what us skeptics are worried about too. If our survival depends on the high mindedness and competence of the U.N. and global cooperation then yes, we are most certainly doomed. To think otherwise is counter-factual and counter-historical. I mean it's just fucking nuts to think that. But, please, by all means offer up the evidence of the intelligence of that survival strategy. Unlike the believers, I'm listening.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

So The New Voice of Wisdom and Scientific Accuracy is a an old shit in North Carolina who can't tell the difference between local/regional weather patterns in one season and global climate year after year.

There are no conservatives in America - just a faction of ignorant assholes who think their immediate circumstances are obvious universals. Any publication interested in empiric reality is right to ban such fools. The intentional misleading of the public is not an American or Western value and the days of a false "balance" that seeks to include the voices of political hacks (just because of how loud they are) no matter how easily they are proven wrong, are finally starting to end. Enjoy.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Geez Bag - don't you have something to invent? I mean, besides your own set of facts?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I think this action puts them squarely in the totalitarian inclined left.

Lol. There's nothing totalitarian about private organizations having policies that proclaim "No lying bullshitters allowed."

It's certainly not a practice you'd be familiar with (how are Saudi California's exports coming along, BTW? Didn't know La Brea was being put in a tanker), but it works and it's within any American's right to freely associate with the people he chooses. If you disagree, you're free to create an organization of your own that loves lies and seeks to find new and inventive ways to promote dishonesty and misinformation as its own cardinal virtue.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Merry Christmas to you Ritmo. This thread is your Christmas present from Lem so carry on.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

In other news, it's fucking freezing outside and the sun is quieter than it has been in a very long time.

Lol. The sun is being "quiet", eh?

Perhaps it's being covered by a big spot.

I bet 60 believes that conditions on earth have nothing to do with the climate on earth. It all has to do with what's going on in the sun.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Well, better than a lump of coal.

I was, er, "skeptical" that you meant that but then, he did quote Think Progress. Perhaps there's hope.

Merry Christmas to you, A.J.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Well, to dial it down a notch and continue in the proper seasonal spirit, this is not about fascism, to put it bluntly. It's not about totalitarianism, either. People can use whatever label they want - they all become meaningless after so much overuse and rah-rah cheerleading anyway.

Instead, it is simply about standards. Opinions and facts are simply different things. Feelings and findings are also different things. At some point if you want to discuss objective reality effectively, standards are necessary. There are forums where personal ideas are more important than looking at what the evidence shows, and I'm glad that some people and organizations tasked with informing the public have decided that they are too responsible to identify as one of them.

bagoh20 said...

Still waiting for the argument, but just a lot of the usual lorem ipsum.

One of the strongest pieces of evidence against both AGW and it's believers' prescription for remedy is that Ritmo buys it all. The dude is dependable if nothing else.

chickelit said...

As with many environmental movements of the past which needed political action, people need to perceive that change is afoot at a personal level. I don't fault them for that -- it's like faulting human nature.

The AG Warmists made a couple of blunders in trying to convince the public. The first was to suggest a carbon tax as a global panacea, given that people know that taxes are for the most part misdirected and corruption weighs anyway. Many people had a negative reaction to Al Gore's doom mongering and personal lifestyle hypocrisy. Better would have been a projection of the Amory Lovins model -- doing environmental things because they are cool -- not because a scold tells us so.

Americans reject authoritarian know-it-alls. That's something that Europhiles overlook.

Unknown said...

Never mind the subject. It's the banning of thought that's troubling.

Palladian said...

Huh, is this the same Reddit that came to the wrong conclusion during the Boston Marathon bombing, accusing the wrong people of the crime and even posting the falsely accused people's personal information?

bagoh20 said...

" ...accusing the wrong people of the crime and even posting the falsely accused people's personal information?"

To be fair, there was a "consensus" at the time.

Chip Ahoy said...

There is no such thing as climate deniers the term itself is indicative of the endless bullshit so-called progressives dish out.

They are damnable retards. Liars across the board. Science deniers themselves. Bullshit artists. Penis breaths without mints. Assholes without excuses.

They appear everywhere proclaiming their superiority before hastening to Craigslist to post their adds offering their services as expert cocksuckers.

No fun at all all. Skip them. You notice once they show up the compulsion disorder takes over and they can't stop themselves posting over and over with the same wearisome driveling shit, until someone responds to their ad with the keyword in subject line "twink."

That was fun.

Revenant said...

Reddit also banned links to Reason Magazine's website (although the ban might have since been rescinded).

sakredkow said...
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virgil xenophon said...

AGW will go down in history as the greatest scam since the hoax of Piltdown Man--only FAR more destructive as billions of the taxpayers hard=earned money world=wide will have been diverted into the pockets of rent-seeking corporatists and academics (grant money) even as the cost of food is driven higher as a result the ethanol scam and electricity rates are needlessly doubled and tripled..

The Dude said...

It's so cute when Rit Mo shows up and pretends that he knows something about science.

Yet when asked basic questions, such as what's the "correct" temperature for the earth, or what are the systems that operate to regulate or change the earth's temperature, he goes away or starts changing the subject.

I think he is almost as dense as Arctic sea ice, but far less useful. It is a good thing he does not work in a field that requires intelligence, logic or knowledge.

Mitch H. said...

I don't think I've strayed onto Reddit more than two or three times, and that's assuming that those links to the Boston Marathon feeding frenzy were actually to Reddit, or some other site summarizing the conclusions. What are they again? Some sort of photo-sharing outfit?

And what kind of "libertarian" website bans links to Reason? Actually, strike that. Big-L Libertarians can be pretty fractious and many seem to be honestly unhinged. It could have been a People's Front of Judea/Judean People's Front situation, I suppose.

The Dude said...

"The IPCC now reports that the observed global mean surface temperature increased at a rate of 0.12 degree Celsius per decade from 1951 to 2012, for a total increase of about 0.72 degree during that period. At that rate, the global average temperature by the end of this century will be more than one degree higher than it is now. An increase of just one degree more is unlikely to be catastrophic."

Rit Mo hardest hit.

test said...

I wonder when they'll ban claims that the minimum wage and unemployment taxes don't increase unemployment.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

They made no blunders. The asshats selling denialism are the the same assholes that were employed by the tobacco manufacturers to hide the evidence of their product's carcinogenicity and addictiveness.

Luckily, their clients got their asses sued off. But their newfound followers don't work in courts of law. Instead, they work in chatboards. So the remedy is just to push for honest chat board moderators. Yes, I know that hurts you.

http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

As with many environmental movements of the past which needed political action, people need to perceive that change is afoot at a personal level. I don't fault them for that -- it's like faulting human nature.

What malarkey. It was apparently human nature to assume the sun revolved around the earth, too. Or that gold could be easily made from lead. Or that the Holy Grail existed. That's what science is for, goofy: Not to confirm the biases of the senses but to use facts and reason to get at the underlying truth. What is wrong with you and how can you not get that? Even if the way science works isn't obvious to dyed-in-the-wool sensualists, dyed-in-the-wool sensualists still need to understand that science is not about sensory confirmation bias.

Better would have been a projection of the Amory Lovins model -- doing environmental things because they are cool -- not because a scold tells us so.

Who cares how someone copes with something or makes their own point? You're looking for a leader. Or a movement. Without those things does the science still not exist?

Americans reject authoritarian know-it-alls. That's something that Europhiles overlook.

In the meantime, feel free to let me know how the American "solution" to colony collapse disorder turns out. Perhaps we'll learn how to grow food without honeybees, while continuing to whore off the agribusiness poisoning them, and teach the Europeans who've sensibly banned the stuff and recovered their bee populations a thing or two while we're at it.

You live in a fantasy.

The Dude said...

You would be good Rit Mo - you flit from subject to subject, never alighting long enough to make an impression.

Nor answer a question, but that's the way of lying commies, I reckon.

chickelit said...

They made no blunders. The asshats selling denialism are the the same assholes that were employed by the tobacco manufacturers to hide the evidence of their product's carcinogenicity and addictiveness.

Sounds like you've got your work cut out for you Torquemada: expose the heretics and burn them!

This dovetails nicely with the auto de fey burning brightly in Hollywood.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

So now you've sunken to comparing the people who distorted and shredded the tobacco industries' findings to victims of the Spanish Inquisition.

Pretty desperate. But then, you're a sensualist. Rationalism doesn't come easy to you. Reflexively defending the newest ventures of those proven beyond any doubt in the courts of law and the courts of public opinion to have poisoned and misled the public is to you the new religious liberty and ethnic tolerance.

Tolerance for lies, misleading the public, and poisoning them! It's the newest mission, for Chickie.

How do you take yourself seriously?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I know it vexes you, Gritty, but Chickie's just upset that I don't trust proven liars as easily as he does.

He'll probably get over it. He's just a sensualist who distrusts reason and evidence - like yourself. I'll post something that appeals to his senses someday and all will probably be forgiven. Or at least forgotten.

chickelit said...

@Everybody still reading this link: please click on ritmo's 7:31 link and confess whether you were persuaded by the heretics cited there.

chickelit said...

BTW, I thought auto de fey was a clever pun.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Dear Chick the Silly Sensualism Bias Confirmer:

Do you not perceive a difference between (blindly) embracing "heresy" and believing an easily disproved lie?

Have you actually, as a scientist, discarded objective truth as a goal?

Are you proud of your weaselly, worm-like way of slithering around these pretty easy questions?

The Dude said...

Project much, Rit Mo?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...
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Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Come up with any ideas ever, Six Tee?

chickelit said...

A reviewer at the Amazon link ritmo provided makes a worrying point with which I concur:

I could offer other points I found troubling, but my "break" with Merchants of Doubt came on page 160. Frequently, in reading newspaper articles or books I don't have sufficient personal knowledge to challenge what I read. But when I do come upon a topic in which I have technical knowledge, I can judge the veracity of the article.

I recall making a similar point on an old Althouse thread now lost to me.

But I'll make the same point again in a different context. This is now a stale thread so WTH.

A day or two after Junior Seau fatally shot himself in the chest, I happened to be working out a gym with someone who knew him (it happened in Oceanside). I myself never knew or met Mr. Seau. The friend was pretty upset about the death and also about the immediate media reaction to condemn pro football which actually sounded reasonable). He pointed that Mr. Seau's younger brother had been mentally incapacitated by a gunshot wound to the head, a fact which is corroborated here but which has never been discussed since the death of Junior Seau. The friend of Junior Seau speculated that he shot himself in the chest not spare his brain for science and to "prove" a link between head injuries and suicide, but instead to avoid the possible same fate as his brother, e.g., mental impairment in the case of survival. But the agenda-driven anti-football media types must have the speculation that he wanted to shut down football. They found willing collaborators in science.